Having raised the sculpture onto sawhorses on October 6, the full team assembled to discuss conservation treatment of the underside and tires, and the final design of the new support structure.

Salvage Symposium: Salvage Art 2.1
Friday, June 5, 2015

Salvage 2.1 focused on issues of context and space. Convening thesymposium around the dismantled sculptural artwork of Buky Schwartz (60th & Cottage Grove Ave), we discussed how the specificity of spaces and places impact public art and praxis as a prelude to reconfiguring these sculptural components and the overall site as a communal urban space.

Founded by Elka Krajewska, the Salvage Art Institute (SAI) supplies a refuge for salvaged art pieces. The survivial of salvage art even past its total devaluation confronts our common understanding of where art ends, disturbing the distinction, organization, and separation of art from non-art. The SAI offers a platform for exposing, viewing, and encountering the condition of salvage art and provides a forum for engaging the regulation of its financial, aesthetic, and social value.

Wolf Vostell’s Concrete Traffic (1970): Workshop #4
Part 1: Thursday, April 23, 2015 -- The Concrete Shell
Part 2: Friday, April 24, 2015 -- The Structure, its Support and Siting

This workshop discussed recent conservation measures and treatment proposals for Wolf Vostell’s Concrete Traffic (1970). During this two-day workshop, we met the newest team members and collaborators and heard the most recent findings from our material investigation.

Christine Mehring: Concrete Traffic
Wednesday, February 4, 2015

On January 15, 1970, the German Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell (1932-1998) had a 1957 Cadillac DeVille covered in ca. 16 tons of concrete to be exhibited as an 'event sculpture' in a parking lot on Ontario Street outside of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Today, Concrete Traffic counts as one of the most significant public art works not only in the university's collection but in the history of 20th century art. Supported by the Neubauer Collegium in partnership with the Gray Center, Christine Mehring has been collaborating with New York based conservator Christian Scheidemann and others to conserve the sculpture and return it to campus. She will discuss the work's significance, making, and conservation process.

Humanities Day October 18, 2014 Christine Mehring and Alice KainConcrete Traffic
On January 15, 1970, the German Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell (1932–1998) had a 1957 Cadillac DeVille covered in sixteen tons of concrete to be exhibited as an “event sculpture” in a parking lot on Ontario Street outside of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Today, Concrete Traffic counts as one of the most significant public art works not only in the University’s collection but in the history of 20th-century art. Supported by the Neubauer Collegium in partnership with the Gray Center, we are collaborating with New York–based conservator Christian Scheidemann to conserve the sculpture and return it to campus. We discussed the work’s significance as well as our conservation process.

Humanities Day October 18, 2014Alice KainArt in Public Spaces: A Walking Tour of Sculptures on the UChicago Campus
Siting outdoor sculpture is a critical factor in the artwork’s meaning and the artistic intention, but how can this be navigated within an active and developing university campus? During this walking tour of public artwork on the University of Chicago campus we discussed issues of landscaping, architecture, and conservation. Key sculptures included Nuclear Energy by Henry Moore, Construction in Space and Time and in the Third and Fourth Dimensions by Antoine Pevsner, and Black Sphere by Jene Highstein.

Art in Public Spaces: Sculptures on the University of Chicago CampusMay 28, 2014
Siting outdoor sculpture is a critical factor to the artwork’s meaning and the artistic intention, but how can this be navigated within an active and developing university campus? Alice Kain, the campus art coordinator at the University of Chicago, examined examples of public artwork on the UChicago campus in Hyde Park as well as issues of landscaping, architecture, and conservation. Read more >>

Open Practice Committee Lecture: Christian Scheidemann
May 19, 2014
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Room 901

Concrete Traffic - Workshop 3May 16, 2014
A team of experts across a broad spectrum of professional fields gathered to assess the structural integrity of the monumental sculpture, Concrete Traffic (1970) by the renowned German Fluxus artist, Wolf Vostell (1932-1998). Part of the Material Matters conservation project of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, led by Christine Mehring, Professor and Chair of Art History at the University of Chicago, this was the last of three workshops to inform the future care and treatment of Vostell’s Chicago landmark. Read more >>

Concrete Traffic - Workshop 2October 18, 2013
The second of three workshops held on the process of returning to the University of Chicago campus Wolf Vostell's public sculpture Concrete Traffic, 1970.